Senate Republicans introduce bill to eliminate budget gimmicks

posted at 1:25 pm on October 5, 2011 by Tina Korbe

If only we could all budget our money the way Uncle Sam does. We could justify routine purchases as “emergency” spending. (Five dollars for a caffeine fix at Starbucks? But it’s an emergency!) We could pretend we saved money by not buying something we never planned to buy in the first place — and then spend that money elsewhere. (You always planned to pay college tuition for your kids even after they graduated university, right? Well, don’t — save the money and buy a new car instead!). We could delay payment by ten years for major purchases and pretend we’ll never have to pay for them. (What washer and dryer? You don’t owe money for either in this 10-year enforceable window — so don’t budget for ‘em at all.)

But, for some strange reason, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) think it should be the other way around: They think Uncle Sam should start budgeting a little more like we do. That’s why, today, they introduced the Honest Budget Act, a bill to eliminate the most outrageous gimmicks Congress uses to justify increased spending.

“The American people are very unhappy with Washington and they have a right to be,” Sessions said this morning on a conference call. “They believe that we’re not honest about our numbers, that we’re manipulating spending and that we’re driving up the debt to further our own agendas. [So,] we’ve examined the budget process over the last decade or more [and] we’ve identified nine distinct problems that tend to recur that represent manipulation of the truth when we deal with the public about the budget.”

Sessions and Snowe identified them — and then sought to eliminate them. Among other things, the Honest Budget Act does the following:

Requires both houses of Congress to adopt a binding budget resolution or face a 60-vote threshold to move any spending bills through Congress (in other words, under the HBA, no budget — in all probability — equals no appropriations);

Makes it more difficult to label routine expenditures “emergency spending”;

Eliminates phony rescissions (Congress can no longer use savings from falsely projected spending to justify actual increases in spending);

Makes real the fake federal pay freeze; and

Disallows timing shifts, which bill drafters use to make a bill appear deficit-neutral within a certain time frame.

“This is a good step,” Sessions said. “We can accomplish two things: We can restore more public confidence in the numbers that come out of the budget process and we can save money at the same time.”

Sessions said he and Snowe expect to receive broad and bipartisan support for their bill.

“I’ve had Democrats tell me they want budget reform,” Sessions said. “I find it more clearly advocated by new members on both sides of the aisle.”

Seriously: Who won’t support this bill? Are some senators actually willing to stand up and say, “We’re all for tricking the American people as long as we’re not caught”? Who am I kidding? Of course some are. Look for this bill to be buried by Harry Reid — but to nevertheless drive a meaningful discussion of budget reform. And if it does come up for a vote, it’ll be nice to have it blatantly on record that some senators actually stand for disingenuous practices.

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Why do they go to all the effort to put forward all of these various procedural rules over and over again, when they could save a lot of time, effort, and money by just putting together a realistic budget and presenting that?

IMHO Olympia Snowe cannot be trusted. She has voted with the dems on major issues like health care and I find it hard to believe that this isn’t something she is doing to try to get re-elected when the time comes.
She is the Hester Pryne of the republican party. Along with Susan Collins.

The best way to get things under control is to make all senators and representatives serve only one term. Lobbyists will have no way other than outright bribery to buy them, and, they’ll know they have this one shot in life to do something worthwhile before they go back home to live next to their neighbors. Permanently.

Here is stark evidence that it’s influence is still growing. Even if the bill goes nowhere, the fact that these things are even being discussed, is a huge step forward.

The teaparty isn’t over, it’s just getting started. 2012 will see, not just another historic defeat for the democrats, but the continued success to purge RINOs and other assorted progressives from the GOP.

If it really brings honesty to the federal budget, then there has to be a way to make the leaders of both houses bring it to a vote. And I hope it does come to a vote! Because, whether it passes or fails, the the American people know who voted against it and plaster that info across all media outlets so we know who has come out of the fiscal fraud closet and is proud of it.

I will be happier when they introduce this in 2013. But I have a feeling that a lot of the Republicans are actually against it, but have no problem doing this now when they know the Dems will shoot it down.

Since 2005, the government has spent about $18,000 billion. If “budget gimmicks” are only responsible for 1.9% of that amount, then the real gimmick here is the notion that this is a meaningful step toward solving the problem.

But, for some strange reason, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) think it should be the other way around: They think Uncle Sam should start budgeting a little more like we do.

Do you not remember that Sen. Snowe is the ONLY Republican member of congress responsible for ObamaCare?

If she told me it was snowing in the middle of a monsoon I would put more sunscreen on!

Thus, by employing the base-line budgeting approach, Assad actually SAVED 1600 lives. He should be getting kudos as a great humanitarian, rather than criticized…right?

What a fraud!

Blaise on October 5, 2011 at 1:46 PM

Agreed: The “baseline funding” routine is a fraud and needs to be eliminated. A simple chart could make this fraud very clear, and it would be a great talking point for Republican presidential candidates.

This would be a great start. It would be great to have a budget with these characteristics. It would show continuity with the current budget

We need a second budget which also includes increases of entitlement liabilities. To go along with the second budget, we need a second balance sheet which includes entitlement liabilities as well as the “small” stuff currently $14×10^12.

… why not a bill that forces them to live under all the laws that they pass for us, i.e. Obowmacare.

Just sayin’…

Seven Percent Solution on October 5, 2011 at 2:58 PM

Totally agree….the republican revolution passed a bill (that clinton signed) that forced the govt to live by the same rules we have to….exactly 17 specific laws….but there were gaping holes in that bill.

Did you know that the privacy act of 1974 wasn’t part of that? Congress still has the right to any information on you they want that the govt has just for the asking (demanding, really).

As for you folks that don’t like this, Sessions has real credibility here. If Snowe wants to claim some credit, I have no problem with it. The issues addressed in this bill need addressing. No, it won’t fix everything, but to turn your nose up to any improvement because it isn’t perfect is to demand we lose every battle from here forward. Is that really what you want here?

If Congress is really serious about budget reform, they should require all budget bills to be single topic — health care is health care, military is military, etc. No porking up a bill on disaster relief with funding for Planned Parenthood.

While they are at it, they should eliminate the parts of the 1974 Budget Act that require the President to spend every dime Congress authorizes. Prior to this wonderful Democrat Congress spending idea, Presidents of both parties would routinely impound spending that they deemed unnecessary to help balance the budget. It’s largely false that Presidents since 1974 have much blame for budget deficits and federal debt — Congress has required them to spend pretty much everything they’ve spent. In other words, Congress, not the President, is the problem with spending and has been since 1974 — which is about the time deficits and the federal debt really started to get out of control.

Go figure why Congress doesn’t want to own up to the political facade about Presidents being responsible for deficits and debt. It’s so convenient to blame someone else for your problems…

Side note : If such a budget rule were in place now, President Obama would easily fail miserably since he is an unmitigated spendaholic and it would easily be an even bigger campaign issue. It would have been interesting to see how Bush, Reagan, Clinton, or Bush might have operated with more power and freedom to control spending.